1st ed.: 1909, 2nd ed. 1910 (112 pp.).
Subtitle: "Political Reflections on Growing into Revolution". (Preface to 2nd ed.: 1. VII. 1910.)
Preface to 1st ed., opening line: "Discussion of the question of political revolution..." (cited from 2nd ed., p. 5)... "In essence — a supplement... to the pamphlet on social revolution" (p. 6).
Theme of the pamphlet: political
revolution
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V. I. LENIN
NB
and that's all!
How exactly?
and that's all?
not a word about what it consists of
Chapter I: "Die Eroberung der politischen Macht". Opening phrase of the pamphlet... social democracy is "eine revolutionare" (italics Kautsky's) "Partei ist" (p. 15).
P. 16 (in the exposition of Marx and Engels's views this is NB)... the possibility arises "die Staatsgewalt zu erobern und
only! not zerschlagen
festzuhalten"
"Es stellt sich immer klarer
heraus, daß eine Revolution nur noch möglich ist als proletarische (italics Kautsky's) Revolution" (p. 18)... It is impossible to seize state power "without political revolution, without change in the essence of state power" (18-19)... P. 20: "Have
they (Marx and Engels) not coined the phrase about the dictatorship of the proletariat (italics Kautsky's) — the phrase about the political supremacy of the proletariat as the sole form in which it is able to exercise state power" (20).
In
the whole of Chapter I (pp. 15-21) not a word about the "smashing" of the military-bureaucratic state
machine, — nor about the struggle against superstitious faith in the state, nor about replacing parliamentary institutions and officials with proletarian institutions of the type of the Paris Commune
Chapter II on the prediction of revolution... that in revolutionary struggle one must be prepared for the possibility of defeats, that we would be "traitors" (p. 26),
* The word "politische" is missing in the manuscript. Ed.
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